Letter: Brownfield building

THE ARGUMENT about development land is not about "affordable new homes" (leader, 20 February).

The last government instructed our county council (Devon) to plan for 99,000 new dwellings; 70 per cent of these are required to satisfy inward migration; two new settlements will be needed to achieve this target. An inspector recently supported this stance and at the same time rejected any target for affordable social housing for local people.

To see what happens when developers are let loose on green field sites, I visited one of the new generation of "self-contained new settlements" - Great Notley in Essex. The result was predictable: row upon row of detached "executive homes".

Oh, and by the way, my politics do not "tilt to the right".

STEVE MELIA

South Brent,

Devon